Astrophysics > Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract: We conduct a selective analysis of the isotropic ($D_V$) and anisotropic
($AP$) components of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) data. We find that
these components provide significantly different constraints and could provide
strong diagnostics for model selection, also in view of more precise data to
arrive. We complemented the BAO data with the Supernova Ia (SNIa) and
Observational \textit{Hubble} datasets to perform a joint analysis on the
$\Lambda$CDM model and its standard extensions. From this analysis, we find a
value of $H_0 = 69.4 \pm 1.7$ \text{Km/s Mpc$^{-1} $} in the $\Lambda$CDM
scenario, which is now consistent with both the Planck and the direct estimates
of Riess et al. We also comment on the possible bias on $H_0$ estimates
introduced by approximate formulae for the sound horizon at drag epoch ($r_d$).
We find that the evidence for acceleration using the BAO data alone is more
than $\sim 5.8\sigma$, which increases to $8.4 \sigma$ in our joint analysis.
Using the BAO data alone, we find a $2.2 \sigma$ deviation from the concordance
model in a two-parameter extension of $\Lambda$CDM, where both $\Omega_k$ and
$w$ are considered as free parameters, leaving space for new physics.